Spoiler History: Starting from the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 814: Tang Dynasty Standard
The hall in Yecheng was not big, and Fu Shou did not deliberately lower her voice.

Everyone heard it clearly, and many of them showed approval and agreement.

After all, apart from anything else, for those of them who had witnessed it, wasn't this what the traitor Dong, who brought disaster to the Han people, did?

And some of the brave ones among the crowd even thought:

If Dong Zhuo were alive, he would probably be surprised by these ambitious people in later generations.

If Cao Cao had seen it with his own eyes, he would certainly have been shocked by the impatience of those who would usurp the throne in later generations.

At this point, Liu Xie became a little curious:
"Since the imperial seal has long been lost, why should future generations still worry about it so much?"

"My uncle has said something about what the country will be like in the future. If it is really that strange, there should be no need to pass on the imperial seal to prove its destiny."

In response to Liu Xie's question, Liu Bei smiled and shook his head slightly:

"Although we are separated by more than a thousand years, we are of the same blood and have inherited the Han name."

"The Chinese have returned to this seal, and the Xia people have inherited the throne here."

"Later generations remember this object, just like a son looking for his parents, or a leaf returning to its roots. It is to use the ancient records to express the spirits of the ancestors."

Although Liu Bei's tone was calm, Liu Xie could feel more and more the weight of the emperor's gorgeous clothes on his body.

Zhang Fei did not have too many feelings about this. After all, he had already read the Xinghan Manifesto, and he knew that this manifesto was to be presented to the world to intimidate the 100,000 people in Jiangdong... No, the military advisor said it was to intimidate the villains and restore Xuanhan for the third time.

In comparison, it is more interesting to look at things from later generations. Just like this, the Xinghan Edict in the light curtain was carefully collected by the pair of bare hands, and then a scroll was slowly unfolded. The content on it made Zhang Fei's eyes light up:
"What a handsome man!"

As Zhang Fei praised, everyone could see clearly that the two words "Spring Outing" on the side of the scroll clearly explained the theme of the painting.

The slowly unfolding scroll shows a corner of a spring street, where peddlers and peddlers are having fun together with scholars and ladies, and those who are riding horses and looking around in spring are facing each other.

What is particularly different is that the characters in this painting seem real and moving, just like paintings from later generations, and have none of the flat feeling of the portraits that the people in Yecheng had seen before.

[Let's call this painting "Spring Outing". Hmm... judging from the signature, it was painted by Yan Liben and Yan Lide in the sixth year of Zhenguan.

Although Yan Liben is more famous among the Yan brothers, Yan Lide is relatively more versatile. Not only is he an expert in painting like his brother, but he is also an outstanding architect in the early Tang Dynasty. The tombs of Li Yuan and Li Shimin were designed and built by him. Different from the burial mounds of the Han Dynasty, he pioneered the construction of tombs built on mountains.

From the perspective of Yan Lide's identity as an architect, it can explain why the "Spring Outing" used perspective painting. After all, modern perspective painting was perfected by architects. This painting technique that requires a mathematical foundation is obviously more practical for architects.

Although I like this kind of plot of brothers working together, it is still a bit difficult to perfect perspective in the Tang Dynasty, because it requires not only painting skills and mathematical skills, but also perfect geometry, and then on this basis, to point out linear perspective, aerial perspective and invisible perspective. This is a hidden huge project. Therefore, even if this painting is fake at first glance, I still like it very much. After all, with the blessing of perspective painting, the upright spirit of the people in the early Tang Dynasty is more three-dimensional, which makes people happy to see it. 】

In the Ganlu Palace, the straight backs of the Yan brothers relaxed a little, and the two brothers couldn't help but smile at each other.

The younger generation's words "it's fake at first glance" did not discourage the two brothers at all. After all, their names had been mentioned more than once when the Tang Dynasty was discussed before. Compared with that, the reputation of a painting's authenticity would not bother the two brothers at all.

What is even more delightful is that in just a few words, the two brothers were able to get a glimpse of the full picture of the so-called "perspective science".

"Although geometry is difficult, your Majesty has already sent envoys to the West, and there are Persian monks willing to pass on the texts on our behalf. How can we not learn by following their footsteps?"

Yan Lide was somewhat in high spirits. Over the past year, whether his younger brother had reluctantly followed Sun Yaowang to explore the principles of human muscles and bones, or he had tried to follow the essence of later paintings and integrate them with the maps of the city camps, both had made some progress.

And at the beginning of this spring, Your Majesty said that according to what later generations said, there were disasters and misfortunes every year for more than 20 years after the sixth year of Zhenguan.

Therefore, the two brothers were asked to paint the scene of spring outing in Chang'an to "record the remaining years of peace in the Zhenguan period". The scroll presented to later generations was the result of the two brothers working together with all their efforts. It can also be regarded as a distant return to later generations for not being stingy in showing the painting book to later generations.

At the moment, it seems that the two brothers' answers are not bad, and Yan Lide's ambitious look also makes Li Shimin very happy:
"What Mr. Yan said is absolutely right. Now that we know it, we should keep it intact, so that we can leave it to our descendants and future generations, and not lose our reputation as a virtuous person!"

Listening to the dialogue between His Majesty and his elder brother, Yan Liben felt a little heroic in his heart, but then he remembered that Sun Yaowang had forced him to be open-hearted countless times, and this heroic spirit immediately disappeared.

Otherwise... follow my brother to learn the architecture of civil engineering? Just escaping from Sun Yaowang's orders, Yan Liben fell into deep thought.

And the evaluation of the painting on the light screen has not yet ended.

[In addition, apart from the perspective painting method that was not available in the Tang Dynasty, some people may wonder why the female portraits in this Spring Outing are all very slender. Didn't they say that fat was beautiful for the Tang people?

In fact, the fact that fat was considered beautiful in the Tang Dynasty is itself a stereotype. Putting aside the painting in front of us, the authentic painting of the Procession of Emperor Taizong to Meet the Buddhist Monk Xuanzang by Yan Liben has been preserved today. In the painting, we can see that the palace maids all have slender figures, which has nothing to do with fat.

From a historical perspective, it is well known that both men and women in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties powdered their faces and viewed frailty as beauty. Zhang Jingwan, a dancing girl in the family of Liang Yangkan in the Southern Dynasties, was known for her ability to perform palm dances, and she left a record of her "waist circumference of one foot and six inches", which is just 40 centimeters. This shows their aesthetic trend.

It is certainly impossible for the early Tang Dynasty to suddenly make a 180-degree turn. For example, the early Tang poet Liu Xiyi loved thin waists. "Slender waist playing with the bright moon" was written by this guy. In addition, it was not uncommon for poets in the early period of Emperor Gaozong to praise thin waists in their poems.

The modern well-known saying "Tang people prefer plumpness" is generally believed to have originated in the Wu Zhou Dynasty, became popular after Emperor Xuanzong came to power, and ended around the An-Shi Rebellion.

The evidence that it originated from the Wu Zhou Dynasty comes from the record of Princess Taiping in the Old Book of Tang. "Plump and broad chin" are the physical characteristics of Princess Taiping. Wu Zetian thought she was "similar to herself", which shows that the mother and daughter should be the same, both with broad faces and slender figures, and have nothing to do with frailty.

The evidence that it was popular during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong is the "beautiful figures" in paintings of court ladies. The characteristics of this type of painting are curved eyebrows, plump cheeks and full figures. Its masters Zhang Xuan and Zhou Fang were active during the Kaiyuan and Tianbao years.

(End of this chapter)